CCNP Bcran Exam Certification Guide (CCNP Self-Study, 642-821)

The book is very informative and definitely worth reading page to page for not only does it give information relevant to the BCRAN exam but also other valuable information which will help the Cisco Professional gain more knowledge in relevant products and technologies and be better in their work. This is a must-have book, part of the Cisco Professional's collector items.

I used this well-written book as my primary study source for the exam. . and I passed the first time I took it!Excellent book. . .very thorough and a great value.

The "CCNP BCRAN Exam Certification Guide, Second Edition" (ISBN 1-58720-084-8; Brian Morgan and Craig Dennis; Cisco Press; 547 pages) is the official study guide for the "Building Cisco Remote Access Networks" exam (BCRAN 642-821). The Forward to this guide states that it is "a complete study tool" for the exam. And it does appear to cover all of the topics described in the exam at www.cisco.com. The topics include traditional and emerging WAN technologies, dial-on-demand, NAT and security. The book is well structured, beginning with a high-level overview of remote access technologies and requirements and presents information in easily absorbed pieces. Very well executed figures, examples and even photographs are used liberally to help explain concepts and familiarize readers with the relevant Cisco products.The book provides several suggested study strategies and useful tips for taking the real exam. The "Do I Know This Already?" questions at the start of each chapter allow readers with different levels of experience to focus on the specific areas they need to improve.At the end of each chapter is a "Foundation Summary" that's intended to reinforce concepts and to be used as review notes prior to the real exam. But the "Foundation Summary" found in several chapters consists of only a few sentences and omits commands and other ostensibly important information found in the text. Also following each chapter is a "Q & A" section with questions that are more difficult than the ones on the real exam. These questions probe one's understanding of a topic and don't depend on the multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank formats that encourage guessing at answers. All questions and answers are grouped into an appendix that makes a good review tool to use the day before the exam. Although the back cover of the guide describes "an entire chapter of scenarios" or real world exercises, only a handful of scenarios can be found distributed among just a few chapters.The companion CD-ROM contains practice questions and the full text in Adobe Acrobat format. A total of 276 test questions are available including 170 questions taken directly from the text and 20 lab simulations. The practice tests use the venerable Boson test engine and contain multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank and list-in-order style questions. The well-designed and functional simulator provides practice in basic configuration of many of the IOS features described in the text.When errors are found in a practice exam at best they are a nuisance; at worst they can actually cost the reader valuable points on the real exam. Thankfully, the printed material and practice tests included here contain few obvious errors. However, no provision is made for easily reporting test errors if you do find them. There is no mention of how to go about reporting an incorrect answer. By contrast, some other products put a button on each answer that will send the questionable text along with comments direc

The book is well written and easy to read. This is the only book i used for the 642-821 exam. It is very similar to the first edition plus a few chapters on Broadband, VPN technologies.The only thing i didnt like in the second edition is that it had too many chapters (very little ones) which could have been combined relevantly like it was in the first edition .Also the test exams in the CD are very useful at the ...[fag] end of the exam to refresh all topics . Overall a very good book for the BCRAN exam .